Prague - Czech us out!

Hello or Ahoy as the Czechs say!

This latest blog update comes to you all the way from Prague in the Czech Republic, well actually Berlin as we have just arrived and are taking some time out to write home to our beloved whanau before catching up on some sleep, as it’s been a whirlwind three days so far!

After an early 3am start, we arrived in Prague at 9am to a balmy temperature of six degrees and there it stayed ever since, fluctuating ever so slightly either way. After navigating our way to our hostel via public transport, we arrived at Miss Sophie’s and were blown away at our cute little boutique accommodation. It seemed the staff were as blown away by us as we were the hostel, as one female staff member in particular was blatantly and outrageously flirting with Brad ogling him well and truly. In fact when Cara arrived later that evening and went to check in, the girl said ‘oh is that Brad’s room?!’ Despite the fact that I had done all the talking. Little witch – she better Czech herself (I’m so pleased with this pun that I predict it might be appearing an inordinate amount in this update).

Anyway, Brad and I grabbed a map from the drooling girl and hit the streets of Prague, ready to get lost and get amongst what is possibly the most beautiful city in Europe. Everywhere we turned there was another photo opportunity and it took us a good few hours just to navigate our way to the old town square, via a scenic river walk past the famous Prague castle and Charles Bridge – total postcard moment.

We managed to stumble across a little Czech restaurant in an underground cellar without a tourist in sight. As tends to happen with us and food, we got a little over excited and ordered far too much, which thankfully turned out to be a blessing in disguise as some of the more traditional meals that showed up were enough to make your toes curl. In fact, both Brad and I literally reeched after sampling a local, cheesy bread and spread combo called tatarak...It was so bad that we kept bringing it up to one another as the day passed, just to make the other spew in their mouth. Fun for hours! The food in the Czech Republic is certainly something else and we can’t say we weren’t warned. Our flatmate Ryan gave us a brief rundown on the food situation before we left, but it really does have to be sampled to be believed. Sometimes you luck out well and truly, like Shady who received almost an entire pig on a skewer, and other times you’re not so fortunate – like me at breakfast this morning when I was served what looked and tasted like vomit wrapped up in a burrito. Cara was also told the same thing by a friend in Slovenia so it’s widely known that Czech food leaves little to be desired.

After our delicious lunch we stumbled across a liquor store where we learned that the Czech Republic is not only the home of lager, but also marionettes, absinthe and a local delicacy, called cannibas vodka. No need to go into details here as the clue is very much in the title. What you see is very much what you get and what I saw was a bottle of vodka with a whole lot of greenery floating in it. Goodness knows what it would do to you, but I can say that we will never know, rather choosing to sample the absinthe and as can be expected when you’re dealing with 80 per cent alcohol, all it tasted like was burning!

After a full day of sightseeing we headed back to Miss Sophie and the Czech perve for a bit of a rest while we waited for Cara to arrive. I managed to find the only English speaking channel and enjoyed a good 20 minutes of a documentary all about the countless bugs and germs that riddle our homes – delightful viewing. After all, what’s a holiday in Eastern Europe’s beautiful and bustling centre without a documentary on bed bugs and skin mites? Thankfully Cara spared me from the creepy crawlies and arrived soon after, much to the delight of the perve who insisted on escorting Cara to our room... Now I wonder why that was? I’m close to positive that she actually planted a few cameras while she was in there, but other than my razor sharp intuition, I don’t have any hard evidence to support these claims. Needless to say, there was no way Cara could have got lost given there were only three rooms on each floor with a huge number painted on the door in black and it was more than obvious that the reason for the impeccable service was due to the fact that she just wanted to Czech out Brad (man I’m good).

Because Cara has been travelling for 10 weeks she arrived with a fair load of stuff and was understandably exhausted, so we decided to hit a delicious, local Mexican restaurant – a perfect choice given we were still a little shaky after the tatarak experience! Then we went in search of chocolate, before retiring to our room for a lengthy catch up.

After a delicious sleep at Miss Sophie’s we woke up on Saturday feeling refreshed and ready to face the day so off we set back to the old town market to stuff our faces with delicious food - food that we spied the day before but were too sick to take advantage of thanks to the ghastly tatarak! After trying a national potato dish, more bratwurst and Czech donuts we were ready to embark on the free walking tour we’ve come to know and love.

The tours are always really amazing and you learn so much from them – like the fact that Czech’s are the largest consumers of beer in the world, or that the Czech Republic is smack bang in the centre of Europe so when WWII was declared to be at an end, neither the Russians or the Americans could provide rescue to Prague as no one was clear about whose responsibility it was. Both had signed a pact that they wouldn’t cross over to the other’s territory so essentially Prague was a no man’s land. In the end the citizens of Prague stood up to Germany by playing ‘contraband’ national Czech music over the radio, informing everyone to ‘resist the Nazis peacefully’. Rather than fight with violence and bloodshed, the Czechs did things like remove the street signs so that the Nazis couldn’t find their way to the radio station to stop the broadcast.

Prague has such a rich and troubled history that we previously didn’t know much about, but it has been in the hands of so many different countries, different dictators and under communist rule that it is only as late as 1990 that it broke free from Russia, before parting ways with Slovakia to become the Czech Republic. After WWII and being occupied by Germany for so long they experienced a few short years of freedom in what is referred to as the ‘Prague Spring’, before being occupied by Russia three short years later.

The Czech people are very proud of their country and their national anthem includes the line ‘where is home’, and as our tour guide explained, this is easily understandable as people that have lived their entire lives in Prague can in effect, claim to have lived in as much as eight different countries without ever having moved house. They also have a strong Jewish influence and were heavily persecuted by the Nazis during WWII. At one point in the tour our guide actually started crying as he regaled us with stories from the war and the Czech people’s passive resistance by refusing to flee, rather choosing to stay and meet death. Very sad stuff – although admittedly the tears were most unexpected and Brad, Cara and I felt more than a little awkward as we were right up the front and as the tears were flowing he was staring us right in the face, eyeballing the heck out of us! One of those situations where all of a sudden someone is crying and you don’t know where to look – so moving and sad, and Gemma Kay I couldn’t help but think you would have been in your element and cracking up at the awkwardness of it all – especially at the ‘deer in a headlights’ expression on our faces! Then as quickly as they started the tears stopped, giving us the chance to turn to one another and exchange ‘WTF’ expressions and question whether that had actually just happened.

I could parrot on about how interesting the tour was forever but thankfully for your sake, I’m a girl of a few words, so I’ll move on. You know me – quiet as a mouse.

After the tour we headed up to the Prague castle where again we were greeted with picture postcard views, making the 1km hike up the hill worth every second. We also encountered a few handsome Czech soldiers with weapons that would make you wet your pants. Brad marched beside them for a wee while for a photo op, before chickening out well and truly – perhaps the funny photo isn’t worth getting speared through the heart with a bayonet. Drop nuts.

Next on the agenda was dinner and miraculously, we had managed to time our arrival in Prague with Shady and Emily, who as you know are travelling through Europe in their van and just so happened to be in Prague at the same time – perfect. Prior to dinner Cara had done a bit of research on good places to eat and after getting lost down Prague’s endless cobbled side streets we managed to stumble across the best of all the search results – a traditional cellar bar/ restaurant/ beer hall. A place where you can’t figure out a thing on the menu and as to what turns up in front of you, your guess is as good as mine. This is where Shady was greeted with almost an entire pig on a spit! We stayed at this cosy little dungeon of a place for hours, eating, drinking and even indulging in an absinthe shot each, which as we’ve established is one of those experiences that I can tick off my list and won’t be repeating. When in Prague after all...

Next stop was another bar, but this time an Irish one where we sung along to the below average band and chatted until the early hours of the morning.

The next day, after a rubbish breakfast of vomit in a wrap for me, we checked out of our beloved Miss Sophie’s, said goodbye to the perve who practically cried at Brad’s departure and headed off to the train station where we boarded a train for Berlin. Prior to our departure we decided to get a few snacks for the journey, where Cara and I were entrusted with this task. After making a rather generous selection we were greeted with the typically shocking customer service I’ve come to expect in Europe and while this experience certainly wasn’t unexpected or surprising in any way, shape or form, she was incredibly rude and it was all far more than I was prepared to put up with on this Sunday morning. Poor Cara was shocked to the core when I turned on my way out of the shop and snarled “thanks for the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced in my life!” I don’t know what it is over here – maybe it’s the language barrier, maybe it was the absinthe shot, but since our departure in May, I have adopted the habit of speaking my mind – much to the embarrassment of others. You’ll remember my screaming match with the German in Freibourg, or even last weekend in Barcelona when I told off a woman for cutting in front of me in line – I just can’t keep quiet. Not that I mind and I’m quite happy with my new found habit truth be told – no longer am I one of those people to keep it inside and fester away. Rather I’ve adopted a policy of sinking to their level and screeching right back at them. Don’t get me wrong, if a meal is bad but the service is nice I never complain, but if someone pushes into me or is just plain rude, rather than get silently angry about it, I’ll say a few cutting comments and walk away feeling top of the world. I’ll let you in on a little secret – it feels fantastic! Next time someone is rude to you, give them a good old verbal clip around the ears – better than therapy. I just have to watch myself – I don’t want to become one of those awful people who ‘speak as they find’ and go around saying awful things like, ‘no offence, but that colour looks absolutely dreadful on you.’ It’s a fine line - you start with asking someone to reheat your stone cold hot chocolate and you end up alienated and not invited to dinner parties for fear of offending all the guests.

I digress. Most unusual for me – as I said, I’m a girl of a few words. So we board the train for Berlin and as everyone says, rail really is such a beautiful way to see the countryside. That is for the first hour or so, and then I just wanted to get off and start exploring. Thankfully I managed to survive the five hour journey as Cara had the good sense to buy pistachio nuts and the shelling and consuming of these kept me entertained for at least an hour.

I’ll leave you here as technically given we’ve arrived in a new city and country, it’d only appropriate I start a new blog entry.

Ciao bella! (Italian obviously, so I’m not sure of the relevance here, but goodbye in Czech is a bit too complicated and given we don’t have many of the letters on the keyboard, you’ll have to put up with Italian!)

Xx